No Surrender! A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee

by G. A. Henty

The multitude were, for the present, safe. There was no strong force of the enemy between Nantes and Saumur, and they halted for the night, dispirited, worn out, and filled with grief. They had left their homes and all they cared for behind. They were in a strange country, without aim or purpose, their only hope being that the Bretons would rise and join them--a poor hope, since the terrible vengeance that had been taken on La Vendee could not but strike terror throughout Brittany, also.

Jean Martin and Leigh had seen Patsey and the nurse placed in one of the first boats that crossed.

"Do not go far from the spot where you land," they said. "We shall stay here, until all is over. If the Blues come up before all have crossed, we shall swim across with our horses; be under no uneasiness about us."

Taking the horse out of the shafts of the cart, and putting a saddle that they had brought with them on its back, they left the three animals in charge of Francois; and then aided other officers to keep order among the crowd, and to prevent them from pressing into the boats, as they returned from the other bank, in such numbers as to sink them. All day the work went on quietly and regularly, until so comparatively few remained that hope became strong that all would cross, before any of the enemy arrived.

That hope was destroyed when, suddenly, the enemy's cavalry appeared at the edge of the slope, and came galloping down. The officers in vain tried to get the few men that remained to make a stand. They were too dispirited to attempt to do so, and the little throng broke up and fled, some one way, some another.

Fortunately an empty boat had just returned, and into this the other officers leapt; while Jean, with his two companions, led the horses into the water. They had already linked the reins. Francois was unable to swim but, at Jean's order, he took hold of the tail of the horse in the middle; while Jean and Leigh swam by the heads of the two outside horses, and without difficulty the other side was gained. Patsey, who had had her eye fixed upon them all day, was standing at the spot where they landed.

They were near the town of Ancenis, and a portion of the Vendeans entered the place, which was wholly undefended. The inhabitants were in abject terror, thinking that the town would be sacked; and were surprised to find that the peasants did no one any harm, and were ready to pay for anything that they required. So long, indeed, as any money whatever remained, the Vendeans paid scrupulously. When it was all expended, the chiefs did the only thing in their power, issuing notes promising to pay; and although these had no value, save in the good faith of the Vendeans, they were received by the Bretons as readily as the assignats of the Republic--which, indeed, like the notes of the Vendeans, were never destined to be paid.

Had the army plunged into Brittany after the capture of Saumur, there can be no doubt that the peasantry would everywhere have risen; but coming as fugitives and exiles, they were a warning rather than a source of enthusiasm; and although small numbers of peasants joined them, the accession of force was very trifling.

Jean Martin, his wife, and Leigh held an anxious consultation that evening. They had found a poor lodging, after attending a meeting of the leaders, at which la Rochejaquelein had been unanimously elected commander-in-chief; Bonchamp having died, while d'Elbee, wounded to death, had been left at the cottage of a Breton peasant, who promised to conceal him. The young soldier had accepted the fearful responsibility with the greatest reluctance. He, and those around him, saw plainly enough that the only hope of escape from annihilation was the landing of a British force to their assistance. Unhappily, however, England had not as yet awoke to the tremendous nature of the struggle that was going on. Her army was a small one; and her fleet, as yet, had not attained the dimensions that were, before many years, to render her the unquestioned mistress of the seas.

The feeling that the Revolution was the fruit of centuries of oppression; and that, terrible as were the excesses committed in the name of liberty, the cause of the Revolution was still the cause of the peoples of Europe, had created a party sufficiently powerful to hamper the ministry. Moreover, the government was badly informed in every respect by its agents in France, and had no idea of the extent of the rising in La Vendee, or how nobly the people there had been defending themselves against the whole force of France. It is not too much to say that had England, at this time, landed twenty thousand troops in Brittany or La Vendee, the whole course of events in Europe would have been changed. The French Revolution would have been crushed before it became formidable to Europe, and countless millions of money and millions of lives would have been saved.